Not only are the coconut farmers always in financial ICU, many coconut trees are also in the throes of extinction. Many are withering, shrivelling and wilting.

About 44 million trees--or one in seven--are past their productive age. As a result, yield per tree has plummeted to 40 nuts a year from an ideal 75 nuts.

But it is in prescribing the solutions that we slightly differ.

I believe that if the industry is in crisis, efforts to revive it must be quick and massive. If the patient is in ICU, then the treatment must be immediate and in adequate dosage, so that the recovery will be fast.

If we bat for an intervention that is perpetual, it means that we are not putting up a deadline on when to cure the sick.

Why should we prescribe a drip-drip in funds - magkano ba, 4 to 5 billion pesos a year in interest income - on an industry which clearly needs much more.

Naghihingalo na ang industriya, mamamatay na sa uhaw, and we are giving him one tablespoon of water at a time to quench his thirst?

In this age of the four trillion-peso budget, the P5 billion is what government spends in 11.6 hours.

29.4 percent lang ito ng pondo para sa travel.

This is supposed to be an industry rescue fund, of an industry in distress. So let us put a deadline, a fighting target on when their misery will end. Hindi open-ended. Hindi forever.

Even 50 years to me is a long time. It is equivalent to two generations. This is a cure that is perhaps the equivalent of a protracted people's war - walang katapusan.

In our history, we have been through great disasters and upheavals, but in rising from the ashes, we prescribed a shorter reconstruction time, because a quick turnaround is the best measure of success.

Nang pumutok ang Pinatubo, perpetual fund ba ang ipinangako natin sa mga naapektuhan ng lahar? I was a freshman congressman at that time. Ano ang promissory note? Help is on the way. It will be massive.

We did not offer a 50-year reconstruction timeline. We did not propose that by 2040, repair works will still be done. Ano ang sinabi natin? Pagpasok ng millennium, in place na ang mga solusyon.